1. Technological Field
The invention relates to a printing device and a printing method for carrying out a printing process on a printing medium using printing matter such as ink.
2. Background Technology
An example of a printing device of this type in the art is the printing device proposed in Patent Citation 1, for example. The printing device disclosed in Patent Citation 1 has a carriage (traveling body) which travels in reciprocating fashion along a main scanning direction, a print head supported on the carriage and having a plurality of nozzles, and a control device for controlling the printing device in its entirety. This control device saves print data that is received wirelessly from an external device, and carries out a printing process based on the print data saved to the buffer.
In cases where print data is received wirelessly, owing to factors such as varying distance between the printing device and the external device or the presence of obstacles, the communication speed between the printing device and the external device may vary. If the communication speed varies, the accumulated amount of print data that is saved to the buffer per unit time fluctuates. Particularly when communication speed is slow, there is a risk of the carriage assuming the idle state until print data equivalent to a single scan is received by the carriage, and data processing inside the control device has completed.
In the printing device disclosed in Patent Citation 1, the control device sends the external device an instruction prompting modification of the data length of the print data equivalent to a single scan of the carriage, depending on the communication speed. As a result, in cases where the communication speed is high, first print data having a first data length is sent from the external device. Then, in the printing device, on the basis of the first print data, a first printing process is carried out using all of the nozzles of the print head. On the other hand, in cases where the communication speed is low, second print data having a second data length shorter than the first data length is sent from the external device. Then, in the printing device, on the basis of the second print data, a second printing process is carried out using some of the nozzles of the print head. Specifically, depending on the communication speed, adjustments are made to the spacing in the sub-scanning direction of regions in which ink is deposited onto the printing medium though a single iteration of travel of the carriage. Because of this, situations where, during the printing process, the carriage goes into the idle state to await print data, and quality is diminished due to drying out of the ink during printing, are suppressed.
Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2002-248751 (Patent Citation 1) is an example of the related art.